WND EXCLUSIVE

What if JFK, C.S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley met in afterlife?

Author who noted convergence of their deaths imagined conversation

Art Moore, co-author of the best-selling book "See Something, Say Nothing," entered the media world as a PR assistant for the Seattle Mariners and a correspondent covering pro and college sports for Associated Press Radio. He reported for a Chicago-area daily newspaper and was senior news writer for Christianity Today magazine and an editor for Worldwide Newsroom before joining WND shortly after 9/11. He earned a master's degree in communications from Wheaton College.

While Nov. 22, 1963, is etched in the minds of Americans as the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, few remember that two other historically influential men died about an hour earlier.

The deaths of Oxford don, fiction author and Christian theologian C.S. Lewis along with “Brave New World” author Aldous Huxley were swallowed up in the monumental event that took place on a street in Dallas 50 years ago today.

“It’s funny that divine providence seems to arrange things that way,” he told WND in an interview Friday. “Mother Theresa died on the same day as Princess Diana, and her death was also overshadowed by a secular event.”

Noting that the men each represented one of the three major worldviews of the modern era, Kreeft imagined what might have happened if they had had a conversation with each other about the big questions of life moments after they left this world.

Putting his imagination to work along with his academic experience, he portrays Lewis as a Christian theist, Kennedy as a modern humanist and Huxley as an Eastern pantheist in a Socratic discussion that centers on what he calls “the Great Conversation” about ultimate reality that has been going on for centuries.

Aldous Huxley

While Kennedy inspired a generation of social and political activists, the Englishman Huxley, though best known for his dystopian novel, influenced a generation of intellectuals who sought enlightenment through psychedelic drugs.

Half a century after that history-altering day, however, Kreeft believes it’s clear whose life, among the three, has been the most consequential.

“From heaven’s point of view, Lewis has had more impact,” Kreeft told WND.

Growing influence

Lewis, who taught at both Oxford University and Cambridge University, is best known for his fictional classics “The Chronicles of Narnia” and “The Screwtape Letters” along with his non-fiction “Mere Christianity,” the book that former Nixon aide Charles Colson cited as influential in his famous conversion.

Lewis’ influence only seems to grow as new generations are introduced to his work, making him more popular today than he was in his lifetime.

“He possessed a unique ability to make difficult ideas clear and to bridge a gap between specialists and generalists and intellectuals and ordinary people,” Kreeft said of Lewis, who at one time regarded himself as an atheist before his conversion to Christianity.

Peter Kreeft, Ph.D., professor of philosophy at Boston College and the King's College

Along with his acclaim as a literary scholar – Lewis was a member of the informal discussion group of Oxford dons called the “Inklings” with “Lord of the Rings” author J.R.R. Tolkien – he remains in the conversation of Protestants and Roman Catholics alike. His books have been translated into more than 30 languages, and his Narnia series alone has sold more than 10 million copies.

Kreeft, a Roman Catholic who also teaches philosophy at the evangelical Protestant liberal arts The King’s College in New York City, said Lewis placed himself in the middle of the theological “battlefield,” where he centered on the essential questions.

Lewis asked, said Kreeft: “Is Christianity a true supernatural religion, or is it just a myth. Is Jesus really divine or is he just a good guy? Did he really rise from the dead, or is that just a nice fairy tale?